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Tarai lucrative no more for forest officers
KATHMANDU, MAY 24 -
Gone are the days when many forest officials sought postings in Tarai districts. Seeking transfer in districts other than plain areas is the latest rage among them.
With the country’s anti-graft body starting to keep a close eye on their ‘malpractices’, many forest officials these days prefer to play it cool. As a result, the Forest Ministry is struggling to transfer a district forest officer (DFO) to Sarlahi district for the last four days. On Sunday, the ministry suspended the then Sarlahi DFO Shekhar Kuamr Yadav for his involvement in timber smuggling and promoting corruption at local level.
No sooner had he got the boot than the ministry asked Under-Secretary Jagadish Kumar Gupta to take charge within 24 hours. However, Gupta outright rejected the ministry direction.
“We have been discussing to assign ‘a capable official’ over the past few days, but nobody wants to go there,” said Forest Secretary Yuba Raj Bhusal.
Yadav was suspended on the direction of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) for promoting corruption and deforestation in Chure region. Bhusal also tried his best by asking Gupta’s colleagues Prakash Lamsal, Bijaya Raj Poudel and Mahesh Chaudhary to take the reins of the Sarlahi forest office, but only to find his call ignored. “All of them turned down my request. We are still searching for a capable official,” said Bhusal.
TKP learnt that most of the officials working at the ministry want to stay in Kathmandu fearing suspension if they failed to control rampant deforestation and corruption in Tarai.
The ministry has decided to nominate Pancha Lal Sah as Panchthar DFO after his predecessor DFO Ganesh Kumar Karki, assistant DFO Ram Adhar Singh and another official
Nilam Katawal were
suspended for promoting deforestation.
Posted on: 2010-05-25 07:35
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